"Mline, AA - Winnie the Pooh, Book 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Milne A A)

...IN WHICH EEYORE HAS A BIRTHDAY AND GETS TWO PRESENTS

EEYORE, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at
himself in the water.
"Pathetic," he said. s' That's what it is. Pathetic."
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across
it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the
water again.
"As I thought," he said. "No better from this side. But nobody minds. Nobody
cares. Pathetic, that's what it is."
There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him, and out came Pooh.
"Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh.
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning," he
said. "Which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all
there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."
"Oh!" said Pooh. He thought for a long time, and then asked, "What mulberry bush
is that?"
"Bon-hommy," went on Eeyore gloomily. "French word meaning bonhommy," he
explained. "I'm not complaining, but There It Is."
Pooh sat down on a large stone, and tried to think this out. It sounded to him
like a riddle, and he was never much good at riddles, being a Bear of Very
Little Brain. So he sang Cottleston Pie instead:

Cottleslon, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."

That was the first verse. When he had finished it, Eeyore didn't actually say
that he didn't like it, so Pooh very kindly sang the second verse to him:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
A fish can't whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."

Eeyore still said nothing at all, so Pooh hummed the third verse quietly to
himself:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken, I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."

"That's right," said Eeyore. "Sing. Umty-tiddly, umty-too. Here we go gathering